E-Food: Success Factors for Establishing Online Food Retailing: A Case Study from Jordan

Food industry has a significant impact on human life. However, this industry has faced many challenges in Jordan in the last decade. These challenges might be globally or locally and effecting its supply chain. Nowadays, the term e-food retailing services have become viral. These services can organize the procedure of the food sector and its supply chain. Also, it will save time and effort for consumers and provides privacy, security, reliability, and service availability. In the study, we investigated the factors that might encourage or concern people to use e-food retailing services instead of traditional food retailing services to help the conventional food retailing service operator pay attention to these factors when transferring to online service. Therefore, we developed a survey to discover these factors. Based on 78 responses, we found that delivery time and cost, food quality, food freshness, service availability, and reliability are the top factors that concern people using e-food retailing services. However, adding some to the e-food applications such as quickly reordering their previous orders, easily reviewing their previous invoices, getting a competitive price, providing special offers, providing loyalty points, privacy, security, friendliness of the user interface, and quickly finding information about the food, can encourage people to use e-food retailing applications. In addition, most participants emphasized that COVID-19 encouraged them to use e-food retailing services. © 2022 IEEE.

Measurement of ampicillin and penicillin G antibiotics in wastewater treatment plants during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study in Isfahan

Background: In recent years, the world has faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a significant increase in the use of antibiotics to control the COVID-19 and other secondary infections. The non -biodegradable characteristics of antibiotics and their residues in the environment leads to increased microbial and drug resistance. Therefore, due to the high importance of antibiotics, two antibiotics, ampicillin and penicillin G, were studied in Isfahan municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs).Methods: Sampling was performed for two months during 13 sampling periods and antibiotics were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detector (HPLC/UV) instrument.Results: Ampicillin and penicillin G were identified in all samples taken from the both WWTPs. The average concentration of penicillin G in WWTP E and S at the influent, effluent and its removal efficiency were 1050.54 +/- 761.43 ug/L, 52.89 +/- 49.27 ug/L, 89.80 +/- 19.42%, 2055.12 +/- 1788.08 ug/L, 143.01 +/- 162.59 ug/L and 82.76 +/- 21.85%, respectively. Also, the average concentration of ampicillin in WWTP E and Sin the influent (796.44 +/- 809.6 and 447.1 +/- 322.39 ug/L), effluent (48.94 +/- 24.25 and 90.31 +/- 75.91 ug/L), and its removal efficiency (86.22 +/- 19.84% and 66.85 +/- 24.88%) were determined.Conclusion: In two studied WWTPs, the concentration of antibiotics was higher during the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison with previous studies. The statistical analysis showed that there was no significant relationship between the concentration of antibiotics in WWTPs (P < 0.05). Also, the statistical results indicated that the correlation is not significant between removal efficiency of antibiotics and removal efficiency of wastewater main parameters.

Monitoring of Amoxicillin and Cephalexin Antibiotics in Municipal WWTPs During Covid-19 Outbreak: A Case Study in Isfahan, Iran

Antibiotics are non-biodegradable drugs that inhibit the expansion and growth of microorganisms. Especially with the prevalence of Covid-19. the consumption of antibiotics has increased. Therefore. the presence of most prescribed antibiotics from beta-lactams including amoxicillin and cephalexin were studied at two municipal WWTPs in Isfahan. The analytical method was to extract antibiotics from the aqueous phase and then detected them via HPLC/UV. Samples were collected from 2 WWTPs for 13 sampling periods over 2 months between February and March 2020 during the outbreak of Covid-19. In WWTP A. the average concentration of amoxicillin in influent. effluent, and its removal efficiency was 509.64 +/- 161.97 mu g/L, 352.96 +/- 203.88 mu g/L, 34.35 +/- 31.38%, and the average concentration of cephalexin in influent. effluent, and its removal efficiency was 189.42 +/- 176.06 mu g/L, 32.6 +/- 49.59 mu g/L, 78.75 +/- 23.81%, respectively. In WWTP B. the average concentration of amoxicillin in influent, effluent, and its removal efficiency was 2134.82 +/- 3031.53 mu g/L, 401.09 +/- 205.86 mu g/L, and 54.82 +/- 33.29%. respectively. Also, the average concentration of cephalexin in influent. effluent. and its removal efficiency was 183.69 +/- 123.48 mu g/L, 23.01 +/- 40.71 mu g/L, and 87.65 +/- 21.76%, respectively. According to Mann-Whitney test results, the concentration of antibiotics in both WWTPs had significant differences (p-value < .05), and according to results from the Spearman test no correlation between removal efficiency of antibiotics with other principles wastewater parameters was observed.

A study on impact of diabetes on duration of hospital stay and mortality of moderate to severe cases of severe acute respiratory illness /COVID-19 in north Karnataka region

Context: As Diabetes is the most common co morbidity reported with covid-19 infection Severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus -2 (SARA CoV-2) which brought about the ongoing pandemic gave opportunity to study the impact of diabetes on hospital stay and mortality of diabetic patients who contracted the corona virus infection. Objective: To study the duration of hospital stay and mortality rate of diabetic patients with moderate to severe covid 19 infection/severe acute respiratory illness and compare it with non diabetic patients of same disease. Method: This was a retrospective observational study in which the records of diabetic patients admitted with severe acute respiratory illness, during the ongoing pandemic, in Al Ameen Medical College Hospital were studied and were compared with the non diabetic patients admitted for the same. The duration of stay and mortality was compared statistically. No distinction was made with respect to type 1& 2 diabetes as they were clubbed together in the same group. Results: Mean duration of illness in diabetic group was 8.1 with SD of 6.9 days and in non diabetic group was 8.4 days with SD 6.5 (p value= 0.8). Mortality was 32.5% among diabetics and 15.7% in non diabetics (p value= 0.001). Conclusion: Our study shows that the duration of hospital stay and mortality was considerably higher in diabetics than non diabetic counterparts. Therefore due attention should be given by general diabetic population to keep their blood glucose levels under control especially in this period of ongoing covid 19 pandemic.

A study of effect of remdesivir on mortatlity and hospital stay of moderate to severe cases of COVID-19/severe acute respiratory illness in North Karnataka region

Background: As the epidemic that started at Wuhan spread globally many agents with antiviral activity were evaluated for the treatment of coronavirus disease. Many agents were claimed to be "Game changer" in the management of covid. Likewise Remdesivir received much attention leading to high demand of a scarcely produced antiviral agent, which many a times was out of stock in our region.